Isaiah 17:1-5

The burden of Damascus. .. The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim

The oracle concerning Damascus and Israel

The curse pronounced upon it [Damascene-Syria] falls also upon the kingdom of Israel, because it has allied itself with the heathen Damascus against their brethren in the south and the Davidic kingdom.

From the reign of Hezekiah we are here carried back to the reign of Ahaz, and indeed back far beyond the death year of Ahaz (Isaiah 14:28) to the boundary line of the reigns of Jotham and Ahaz, soon after the conclusion of the league which aimed at Judah’s destruction, by which revenge was taken for the similar league of Asa with Benhadad against Israel (1 Kings 15:9). When Isaiah incorporated this oracle in his collection, its threats against the kingdoms of Damascus and Israel had long been fulfilled. Assyria had punished both of them, and Assyria had also been punished, as the fourth strophe (verses 12-14) of the oracle sets forth. The oracle, therefore, stands here on account of its universal contents, which are instructive for all time. (F. Delitzsch.)

The fall of Damascus

When cities do not pray they go down. (J. Parker, D. D.)

The loss of faculty as a judgment

It is possible for a man to moralise about the fate of a city, and forget that the principle of the text is aimed at all life. Life poorly handled means loss of life; faculty fallen into desuetude means faculty fallen into death. (J. Parker, D. D.)

The cities of Aroer

The cities of Aroer represent the land to the east of the Jordan, in which the judgment on Israel, executed by Tiglath-Pileser, began. There were, in fact, two Aroers; an old Amorite Aroer, which fell to the tribe of Reuben, situated on the Amon (Deuteronomy 2:36; Deuteronomy 3:12, and elsewhere); and an old Ammonite Aroer, which fell to the tribe of Gad--Aroer before Rabba (Rabbath Ammon, Joshua 13:25). The site of the ruins of the former is Arair, on the high northern bank of the Mugib; the situation of the latter has not yet been ascertained with certainty. The “cities of Aroer” are these two Aroers along with the cities on the east of Jordan like them, just as the “Orions” in Isaiah 13:10, are Orion and stars like it. (F. Delitzsch, D. D.)